Applicable(?) Aphorisms #15

"Who is rich? One who is content with his portion." (Judaism, Pirkei Avot 4:1)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

There are at least three ways to read this one. In no particular order:

• As a quasi-Buddhist caution against striving/desire, linking enlightenment as "riches" to avoiding ambition and the chase for material wealth.
• As a classist "don't try to rise above your station in life" admonition.
• Or, far more simply, an invitation to let one's self experience happiness whatever one's situation may be

The first two rub me the wrong way. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I tend to find my happiness in the setting of goals and process of achieving those goals. More so, often, than in my subsequent enjoyment of whatever benefits the achievements deliver. Not even big goals, necessarily. Like Steve Jobs said, "the journey is the reward."

As for the third, well, yeah. It's better to be happy than not, and if there's something in the "current portion" to be happy about, use that.

Wordle 1764 Hint

Hint: A sycophant or flunky.

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First Letter: T

I've Pretty Much Made Up My Mind ...

... to keep the Jayco 806SD pop-up camper as my home office, rather than upgrading to a larger camper.

When I got it, I pledged to give it at least six months before deciding to 1) keep it, 2) buy a larger, non-pop-up, camper, or 3) just move my office back into the house.

It's only been four months, but the little camper has proven to be plenty large for my office needs, and my various climate control experiments have been educational enough that I expect, over the summer, to be able to get it really well insulated, de-drafted, etc. at fairly small expense. Might as well go that way as mess with a complete change of venue.

I've got elastomeric roof sealant arriving today so that I can pull the tarp off the top and get that taken care of. When I first got the camper, there seemed to be one (invisible to the naked eye on inspection) tiny roof leak that allowed a very small amount of water into the main compartment, so the tarp went on for the winter.

Now I've got dry weather (very dry weather, and no rain in the 10-day forecast) to take care of that, and to start figuring out a better way to remediate the crappy canvas in the pop-outs. One solution is to just remove the pop-outs and frame the thing in at both ends, but I don't know if I will do that or something else.

In lieu of the larger camper, I am mulling the idea of looking for a cheap but mechanically sound van with tow capability. I haven't owned a four-wheel vehicle in decades, but I was thinking the other day how cool it would be to have a vehicle that I could roll one of my motorcycles into the back of, strap a kayak to the roof of, hook my camper to the rear of, and drive off for camping, etc.

On the other hand, I may just save my pennies and, later this year or early next, start looking at larger motorcycles. I'm starting to see reasonable prices on my preferred brand (Royal Enfield) in the used market, and I expect those prices to fall further because it's now been a few years since that brand started really penetrating the US market ... so there should be some Interceptor 650s that are reaching the "this takes up garage space but I hardly ride it, might was well sell it" age group.